Judge refuses to delay Dalia Dippolito’s trial – set for Dec. 1

While allowing one attorney to get off the case, a Palm Beach County judge on Thursday refused to delay Dalia Dippolito’s Dec. 1 murder-for-hire trial to allow another lawyer to get up to speed about the seven-year-old case.

In a brief hearing, Judge Glenn Kelley granted Miami attorney Mark Eiglarsh’s request to withdraw as one of Dippolito’s attorneys. Eiglarsh cited irreconcilable differences, explaining that to say more could embarrass Dippolito.

Minutes later, Kelley denied attorney Greg Rosenfeld’s request to push Dippolito’s trial back to early next year. “This case has been pending for seven years. It’s been two years since it came back from the (appeals court),” Kelley said. He noted that Dippolito has chewed through “two or three sets of attorneys” yet California atttorney Brian Claypool has been her lead attorney since July 2015. There is no reason for a further delay, he said.

The 33-year-old Boynton Beach woman was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to 20 years in prison for hiring a hitman in 2009 to kill her new husband. The “hitman” turned out to be a Boynton Beach cop. She won a new trial in 2014 when the 4th District Court of Appeals ruled that jurors should have been interviewed individually about how much they knew about the case that became an internet sensation when her tearful – some say insincere – reaction to the false news of her husband’s death went viral. Dippolito, who was silent during the hearing, remains on house arrest.